Heavy rains lashed parts of western Japan on Thursday as tropical storm Krosa made landfall, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights and trains as authorities advised more than half a million people to evacuate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the regime will not evacuate the settlements it has built in defiance of international law on the occupied Palestinian territories under any conflict resolution deal with Palestine.

Israeli authorities have ordered the residents of a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank to vacate before the start of the next month as the Tel Aviv regime presses ahead with its land expropriation policies in the occupied territories irrespective of great international outcry.

China on Wednesday evacuated tens of thousands of people in its mountainous southwest after a strong earthquake killed at least 19 people, rattling a region where memories of a 2008 seismic disaster remain fresh.

The last buses transporting foreign-backed militants and their families have prepared to evacuate a district in Syria’s Homs province, bringing the entire city back under the control of the government.